Two cars... 6 bodies... found 3 ft apart in lake...

[MichaelWinicki]

The two rusty, mud-caked cars that Oklahoma officials stumbled onto at the bottom of a lake, where they found six skulls and skeletal remains, sat 3 feet apart under 12 feet of "super murky" water.

To add to the mystery, officials say, the cars might have gone into the water a year-and-a-half apart, more than 40 years ago.

"It's just so crazy," Oklahoma Highway Patrol spokeswoman Betsy Randolph told ABCNews.com today.

Oklahoma Highway Patrol's lake patrol division was testing new sonar equipment last week in Foss Lake in Custer County, Okla., when they detected some unusual echoes that indicated the presence of large, metal objects under the water.

"Our guys just naturally assumed this may have been a stolen car pushed off into the lake. Sometimes that happens," Randolph said. "As soon as they pulled up the first vehicle, they found a femur bone in the driver's seat."

Three feet away, they found a second car with more skeletal remains in it. They have since recovered six skulls and matching bones.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/cars-skeletal-remains-found-feet-bottom-oklahoma-lake/story?id=20293329

 

[MichaelWinicki]

A stunning story that defies odds... I mean two cars of 3 people each disappear within a year and a half from each other and end up a few feet apart.

 

[WoodysGirl]

Read about this story the other day. That's pretty crazy. This would be the perfect story for the old Cold Case series. I guess it would be documented in the Cold Case Files.

 

[JohnnyTheFox]

Here is another link with some better pics as well as a pic of the 69 Camaro and its owner just after the boy had purchased the car.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...long-teenagers-went-missing-40-years-ago.html

 

[KoRnyBrad]

Wow, that is crazy!

 

[jobberone]

Spooky action at a close distance.***Albert Einstein***

 

[MichaelWinicki]

It seems as though they drove off the end of the boat launch...

At first I thought, OK maybe the boat launch came off a curve and these folks went straight instead of following the curve. But from looking at the overheads, the short road to the boat launch comes off a 4-way intersection, so they had to either plow through the intersection or simply turned down the boat launch road in state of confusion. One report has bottles of beer in the teen's car so maybe they were
under the influence. The driver was what? Only 16 so he had very little experience.

Still kind of odd... two cars a year and a half apart making the same fatal mistake.

 

[Tabascocat]

Amazing they could sit there for 40 years(in 12ft of water) and no one found them. People like to swim around boat launches, fish, etc. I have seen trailers fall in, have done it myself, seems someone would have bumped into them.

 

[JohnnyTheFox]

Amazing they could sit there for 40 years(in 12ft of water) and no one found them. People like to swim around boat launches, fish, etc. I have seen trailers fall in, have done it myself, seems someone would have bumped into them.

I read somewhere that actually the cars were found more towards the middle of the lake.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

I read somewhere that actually the cars were found more towards the middle of the lake.

One place said that they (the cars) were 50' from the end of the boat launch, which would kind
of make sense since they were found in 12' of water and you would think the lakebed would gradually slope down from the end the boat launch.

In other words both cars were probably going a pretty good clip when they reached the end of the boat launch.

 

[burmafrd]

IF the cars did not have seat belts and with their age a definite possibility, and they were drunk, then it makes sense. Driving too fast hit the water - bounced around and dazed - already drunk- not surprising they drowned.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

IF the cars did not have seat belts and with their age a definite possibility, and they were drunk, then it makes sense. Driving too fast hit the water - bounced around and dazed - already drunk- not surprising they drowned.

That's true. It was probably over quickly. Again to be found 50' from the boat launch would infer that they (both cars) were moving pretty fast. I think it was the county sheriff in one of the articles that I came across who said the fan blades on the Camaro looked like they struck the water at a high rate of speed.

As far as the other guy, you had a guy who was 69 driving and certainly age could have figured into it.

A couple of the relatives have inferred there was possibly a criminal act involved with both cars ending up there (at about the same spot), but that sounds like a reach with what we know so far. I mean you aren't going to push those cars off the boat launch and have them go out 50'.

It would be interesting to send a car off the end of the boat launch at the same speed of the highway leading to the boat launch. I don't think anyone would be shocked to find the car ending up at about the same spot.

 

[Vtwin]

Similar thing happened in Maine this summer.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...their-deaths-in-atlantic-ocean-off-maine?lite

 

[RS12]

One of the cars was a 69 Camaro. Saw a news photo.

 

[ROUSH8692]

Read about this story the other day. That's pretty crazy. This would be the perfect story for the old Cold Case series. I guess it would be documented in the Cold Case Files.

How can you assume their bodies were cold?

:sarcasm:

 

[MichaelWinicki]

From another source it was reported that the cars were facing in opposite directions.

It seems as the '52 Chevy was simply driven into the water. The drivers side door was open. One guess is that the driver released the door but couldn't open it fully due to the water pressure against it... at least until the water pressure equalized and then the door opened fully on its own, but by that point it was too late for those inside.

The '69 Camaro apparently backed in. It probably had a manual tranny and the 16 year-old, not having a lot of experience and possibly under the influence simply put it in the wrong gear. He only had the car for a week before the accident.

 

[WoodysGirl]

Car recovered from Okla. lake shows sign of wreck

ELK CITY, Okla. (AP) — A Camaro connected to the 1970 disappearance of three teens that was recovered from an Oklahoma lake shows signs of an accident, while a second car connected to another case appears not to have been in a wreck, a state trooper said.
The Camaro and another Chevrolet missing since 1969 were recovered after troopers testing sonar equipment detected them near a boat ramp at Foss Lake. Police believe they have solved two missing-persons cases involving a total of six people. The state medical examiner's office is attempting to determine identities.
Trooper George Hoyle told the Daily Elk Citian newspaper that the Camaro was running when it entered the lake and the impact damaged the radiator fan, a motor mount, the drive shaft and the fuel pump. He said the evidence suggests foul play was not involved in the teenagers' disappearance and that the driver was possibly unfamiliar with his surroundings.

More: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/car-recovered-okla-lake-shows-sign-wreck

 

[JohnnyTheFox]

Car recovered from Okla. lake shows sign of wreck

ELK CITY, Okla. (AP) — A Camaro connected to the 1970 disappearance of three teens that was recovered from an Oklahoma lake shows signs of an accident, while a second car connected to another case appears not to have been in a wreck, a state trooper said.
The Camaro and another Chevrolet missing since 1969 were recovered after troopers testing sonar equipment detected them near a boat ramp at Foss Lake. Police believe they have solved two missing-persons cases involving a total of six people. The state medical examiner's office is attempting to determine identities.
Trooper George Hoyle told the Daily Elk Citian newspaper that the Camaro was running when it entered the lake and the impact damaged the radiator fan, a motor mount, the drive shaft and the fuel pump. He said the evidence suggests foul play was not involved in the teenagers' disappearance and that the driver was possibly unfamiliar with his surroundings.

More: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/car-recovered-okla-lake-shows-sign-wreck

If it damaged the radiator fan, motor mount as well as the drive shaft that must have been a tremendous impact.

 

[cowboyeric8]

Also could it be that the lake was lower at the time of the wrecks, or that after time they just simply slid down further.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

Or, 40 years ago, there was a Dexter type, running around in Oklahoma that found a nice little spot to ditch victims.